ABSTRACT
The outreach program "A scuola di Astroparticelle” was proposed in 2016 by the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN - Napoli Division) in collaboration with the Physics Department "Ettore Pancini” of the Federico II University in Napoli, CNR-SPIN and CNR-ISASI Institutes. Its main goal is to engage teachers and students of High Schools in astroparticle physics projects. For the third edition (2018/19), the activities, which are also part of the Italian Educational Program PCTO - "Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l'Orientamento”, involved 18 schools for a total of 21 projects on several topics. Some projects were strictly related to astroparticles as cosmic rays, while others were more technical, as the development of particle detectors, or cross-disciplinary projects. Students worked for the entire school year and prepared materials for the final event. More than 600 students attended the event and presented their work to a jury with a poster and an oral presentation in plenary sessions. Since 2018, the program is part of OCRA - Outreach Cosmic Ray Activities - a national outreach project of INFN with the aim of collecting, within a common framework, the numerous outreach activities in cosmic-ray field carried out at the local level. The fourth edition (2019-20), in spite of the difficult situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has also seen the participation of 22 schools that carried out part of the activities in an online format. The project realized using the open data of the Pierre Auger Observatory will be presented in detail. © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
ABSTRACT
Background: MoviS: ‘Movement and Health Beyond Care’ is a 3-year randomized controlled trial aiming to educate cancer patients after adjuvant therapy on the benefits of personalized physical activity (PA) and a proper nutritional plan. Methods: In this project, breast cancer (BC) patients who consent to participate will be randomized to Interventional Arm (A), consisting of 3-months of Movis Training, or Control Arm (B), consisting of standard care with no supervised PA. The Movis Training consists of 3-months of aerobic training (2 d/week of supervised training and 1 d/week of unsupervised exercise) with an increase in exercise intensity (40-70% Heart Rate Reserve) and duration (20-60 min). Ad interim analyses every 3-months up to 1-year will be included. The first cohort of eligible BC survivors were enrolled in January 2020 and carried out the Movis Training even during the COVID-19 pandemic. The primary outcome is improvement of Quality of Life (QoL) assessed by European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer QoL (EORTC QLQ-C30). The secondary outcomes are improvement of health-related QoL parameters such as: PA level (International Physical Activity Questionnaire;SenseWear Armband), fitness (VO2max), flexibility, strength, psychological well-being (Psychological distress Inventory;Profile of Mood States and diet habit (DianaWeb, MEDIET modified and recall 24h);Anthropometric measurement, Body mass (kg);BMI (kg/m2);body composition. Results: The expected improvement (mean ± SD) of the QoL in Arm A at 3-months is 15.1 ± 17.7, while in Arm B is 6.1 ± 17.1 (Cohen d effect size=0.51, medium effect). Using a t test for independent samples, with 0.05 alpha and 0.80 1-beta will require 60 subjects per group. Considering an expected drop-out of 30%, a total of 172 patients will be recruited. Conclusions: The targeted exercise oncology through multidisciplinary team would like to provide a coordinated program of cancer care to improve health care quality, improve prognosis, increase survival times and QoL and reduce the risk of BC recurrence. Legal entity responsible for the study: Elena Barbieri. Funding: Has not received any funding. Disclosure: All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To report mode of delivery and immediate neonatal outcome in women infected with COVID-19. DESIGN: Retrospective study. SETTING: Twelve hospitals in northern Italy. PARTICIPANTS: Pregnant women with COVID-19-confirmed infection who delivered. EXPOSURE: COVID 19 infection in pregnancy. METHODS: SARS-CoV-2-infected women who were admitted and delivered from 1 to 20 March 2020 were eligible. Data were collected from the clinical records using a standardised questionnaire on maternal general characteristics, any medical or obstetric co-morbidity, course of pregnancy, clinical signs and symptoms, treatment of COVID 19 infection, mode of delivery, neonatal data and breastfeeding. MAIN OUTCOME AND MEASURES: Data on mode of delivery and neonatal outcome. RESULTS: In all, 42 women with COVID-19 delivered at the participating centres; 24 (57.1%, 95% CI 41.0-72.3) delivered vaginally. An elective caesarean section was performed in 18/42 (42.9%, 95% CI 27.7-59.0) cases: in eight cases the indication was unrelated to COVID-19 infection. Pneumonia was diagnosed in 19/42 (45.2%, 95% CI 29.8-61.3) cases: of these, 7/19 (36.8%, 95% CI 16.3-61.6) required oxygen support and 4/19 (21.1%, 95% CI 6.1-45.6) were admitted to a critical care unit. Two women with COVID-19 breastfed without a mask because infection was diagnosed in the postpartum period: their newborns tested positive for SARS-Cov-2 infection. In one case, a newborn had a positive test after a vaginal operative delivery. CONCLUSIONS: Although postpartum infection cannot be excluded with 100% certainty, these findings suggest that vaginal delivery is associated with a low risk of intrapartum SARS-Cov-2 transmission to the newborn. TWEETABLE ABSTRACT: This study suggests that vaginal delivery may be associated with a low risk of intrapartum SARS-Cov-2 transmission to the newborn.